Listening to the Antarctic Ice Shelves – they say "no climate change"

From the Australian

Ice shelves stable over six years

ANTARCTIC ice shelves are showing no sign of climate change, six years of unique research have shown.

Previously on WUWT we discussed the media’s fascination with “melt” when it comes to ice shelves cracking off. Then there’s also this picture that keeps getting recycled. Now there’s the “ice listeners” that hear no change. (see my note at the end)

http://www.ogleearth.com/wissm.jpg

Here’s the article in the Australian

Scientists from Western Australia’s Curtin University of Technology are using acoustic sensors developed to support the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to listen for the sound of icebergs breaking away from the giant ice sheets of the south pole.

“More than six years of observation has not revealed any significant climatic trends,” CUT associate professor Alexander Gavrilov said yesterday.

Professor Gavrilov and PhD student Binghui Li are investigating whether it is possible to detect and monitor significant changes in the disintegration rate of the Antarctic ice shelf by monitoring the noise of ice breaking.

The pair are using two acoustic stations, one 150km off Cape Leeuwin, the southwest tip of WA, and another off the gigantic US military base on Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean.

“They are part of a network of underwater acoustic receivers, or hydrophones,” Dr Gavrilov told The Australian yesterday.

The stations have been used to locate nuclear explosions detonated by India.

More than 100 signals from Antarctica are detected weekly by the Cape Leeuwin station. They are then transmitted to Geoscience Australia in Canberra.

“Six years of results is not long in the scheme of things, so we will keep watching,” Dr Gavrilov said.

The pair will present their research at a conference in Europe later this month.

NOTE: While the science on this is questionable at this point, one should note that if the results went the other way, our valiant media would no doubt trumpet the news worldwide. No doubt we’d see catchy headlines like “Ice whisperers hear climate change in the Antarctic” – Anthony